♪ ♫ On the 4th Day of Christmas...

...my true love gave to meeee...♫ ♪

Hello!

Today is Challenge Day over at My Artistic Adventures, and this fortnight's theme (being as it's the middle of the month) is the Fourth Day of Christmas.  That means Four Calling Birds.  Or any kind of birds in any number.  Or four of anything at all.  I goofed last month and kind of fudged the Third Day of Christmas challenge so I've made quite sure I'm right on target this time with my four (that's 4) NOEL blocks.  

If you've read my blog for any length of time, you know I'm on a big wooden block kick, both using big single 4x4" blocks or multiples of the little 2-inch kind.  These are the little ones.  As usual, they look lots and lots of sanding to give the edges and corners the well-loved look, then I sponged distress ink on all the sides and corners.  Guess what?  When you adhere things with water base glue (Mod Podge in this case), most of that water based distress ink comes off.  However, some does still remain, though it's quite faint in these pictures.  Well, except for the Noel side - I used archival ink on that side so that the top coat of Mod Podge wouldn't' wipe it away.  But more on that later.

I've used several of Heather's collage sheets, reducing them in size then cutting them out with my Silhouette Cameo.  (All collage sheets will be displayed below.)  And before adhering the images, I painted the blocks a cream color and stamped them with brown archival ink using a music note stamp after first stamping off 2 or 3 times.  I wanted just a faint hint of music in the background.

Aren't the little bingo cards cute? 

Here's a closeup of the Christmas Greeting image.  

More images.  And yes, there are several birds on these blocks too.  Four Calling Birds, remember?  On four blocks.  No underachievers this month.

There are FIVE sheets to this set.

More Christmas cuteness.  See those crossed candy canes?  Heather already had candy cane collage sheets, but none of the candy canes were crossed, so I asked and she delivered.  She's pretty cool that way.   (And they're available in her Etsy shop.)

You can see the distressed edges a bit.  Yep, archival inks next time.

The letters were stenciled with black acrylic ink but looked a little bland all by their lonesomes, so I sponged brown archival ink around the edges to give each letter a bit of a bright halo, then I sponged gold metallic paint on top of that before giving the final two coats of Mod Podge.

And that, lovely readers, is my project for this challenge.

NOTE:  

Heather has decided to take a break for the summer and  will be starting the Challenges back up in September, plus she will be posting a Design Team Call the End of July.  The challenges will be every two weeks.

Happy crafting!

Shabby Ornament, and Challenge Day

Hello and good morning!

It's time for a new challenge over at Tuesday Alchemy, and this week's challenge is #45 - Anything But a Card.  How fun - you can make ANYTHING, so long as it's not a card.  The prizes are awesome:

5 digital stamps from 

and
$10 store voucher to 


So start crafting and let us see what you can do!

My project is another rosette, this time a cone ornament consisting of rolled squares of CS.  I learned this from my good friend Catherine Pooler over at StampNation (members go here, non-members here).

It was a little tricky to put together, but the end result is so worth the glue all over my fingertips.  Just ask my DD - this ornament now resides in her apartment.  

You can achieve different sizes of ornaments with different sized squares.  Mine is approximately 5.5" across, which was achieved with 2" squares.  They get a bit fiddly when trying to roll and glue them, but stick with it - it's worth the effort.  All papers except for the snowflakes were inked on the edges with distress ink.

For the centerpiece, I used Robyn's Fetish digital image "Gilded Dove." I printed it on white shrink plastic, then cut it out, shrunk it and colored it with Copics.  The jury's still out on whether it's better to color an image pre- or post-shrinkage.  I'll keep you posted.

Tip: Line art images are better for shrink plastic projects than silhouette images as there isn't as much ink to shrink.  That ink has to go somewhere, and too much of it in the initial stage can lead to smearing after shrinking.

Look closely and you can see the glasslike finish - this was achieved by flooding the colored piece with Ranger Glossy Accents.  It was my first time using it, and I LOVE it - it dries very quickly and with a wonderful hard shine.  I applied a ring of ostrich feathers behind the image, gluing it to a doily die cut (which you can barely see).

 I added some snowflakes to the lower right hand side that I first painted with ivory paint, then glittered and added pearl centers...

 ...and a soft, squashy messy bow with an antique brad to the upper left hand side for balance.  And I lightly glittered inside the points of the cones all the way around, then added a narrow gold ribbon for the hanger.

This is a Christmas ornament of the shabby chic ilk, but it doesn't have to come down after Christmas as it has winter appeal as well, and my DD plans to leave hers up until spring, unless I fail to come up with a spring/summer replacement, at which point she'll leave this up until I do.  Oh, the pressure.

Thank you for joining me today, and I hope you'll hie yourself over to Tuesday Alchemy pronto and put yourself in the running for some neat prizes!

Happy crafting!

Ingredients:

Stamp: Robyn's Fetish Gilded Dove
Paper: K & Co. Classic K dp
Ink: printer, Ranger Distress Tea Die (inked edges of papers)
Accessories: Dienamics Let It Snowflake and doily dies, seam binding, pearls, Copics, Glossy Accents, SU Antique Brads, ClearSnap Fairy Dust Glitter "Pralines and Cream," gold ribbon, Creative Inspirations Ivory paint.

Challenges entered:

Simon Says...What's Your Favorite! (tool, stamp, product) - my faves are glitter and ribbon.
Delightful Challenges - Very Blingy
Charisma Cardz Challenge #49 - Christmas Makes
Really Reasonable Ribbon Challenge #62 - Anything Goes & Ribbon
C.R.A.F.T. Challenge #185 - Winter
3 Girl Jam Challenge #8 - Christmas Inspiration
Pile It On #49 - Pile On the Embellishments
Flourishes Timeless Tuesday #200 - "Deck the Tree Trimmings"
Ladybug Crafts Ink - Anything Goes at Christmas

Frosted Designs On the 8th Day of Christmas - 8 brands/products - Mine are:
Designer Paper, shrink plastic, feathers, Copics, glitter, ribbon, antique brad/pearls (counts as one), Ranger Distress Ink Tea Stain (for inking the edges of the papers).

Golden Snowflake

Hello and good morning!

Yesterday was the day of the Annual Christmas Lunch that I've been sharing with two of my very good friends for the past 14 years.  We normally have it at my house with a full English tea, but this year we broke with tradition and had it at C's house instead.  Was a very nice change, and I was delighted to get to enjoy her Christmas decorations in her new house.  G. and I brought a dish each and C. provided additional dishes plus dessert, all of which was divine.  Afterwards, we had our gift exchange, and C's husband snapped a few pics.  We've missed our day only once in all these years, and it is something we look forward to as a break in the holiday hustle and bustle.  

Here are We Three Queens (G., C., and me!).

It was such a fun day that I was inspired to play in my craft room when I arrived back home.  Here is the resulting card.

It is one of the few CAS (Clean and Simple) cards that I have made.  CAS?  Me??  But the challenge was out there, so I did my best.  Of course there is still bling on it.  I mean, let's not get crazy here.

The color challenge was white, gold and one other color for which I used red, a classic combination.  I embossed the first layer with my trusty snowflake embossing folder.   

Frosted Designs is having a 12 Days of Christmas challenge in which I'm trying to play catch-up as I only discovered them a few days ago and they were already on the 5th Day of Christmas.  That, as we all know, means "5 golden rings."  The challenge is to use 5 gold (or yellow) items on your project, so I used a soft metallic gold paper for the strip of paper, glittery gold snowflakes (there are three layered together), ribbon with golden threads, gold embossed greeting, and a golden rhinestone in the center of the snowflake. 

Here is a picture of the snowflake showing how I've stacked three of them in graduating sizes. You can't very well see that there are three, but you can see how I've separated each one with a bit of a dimensional.  And the rhinestone center.

The greeting layers were also popped up for dimension after first heat embossing the greeting using SU gold ep.

And that's it for this card.  One thing about CAS cards - there aren't long lists of materials used.  It kind of stops me short in my description of these kinds of cards.  I do tend to ramble on, but CAS cards beg to be kept short.  Hmmm. . . 

So thank you for joining me today, and thank you C. and G. for a lovely afternoon!  

Until next time, happy crafting!

Ingredients:

Stamp: Teeny Tiny Wishes (SU)
Ink: Versamark
Paper: Cherry Cobbler, Whisper White, gold glitter, gold shimmer (The Paper Studio)
Accessories: SU gold ep, gold rhinestone, ribbon, Snow Burst ef (SU), Word Window and Modern Labels punches (SU), SB Snowflake Pendant dies.

Challenges entered:

Oozak Challenge #9 - Anything Goes + Red
Paper Playtime #90 - Christmas Colors
Tuesday Throwdown #126 - White Christmas
Ladybug Crafts Ink - Sparkliscious
Simon Says.... Snowflakes
Divas By Design #64 - Let It Snow
CCEE1249 - Favorite New Dies (New SB Snowflake Pendant)
C.R.A.F.T. Challenge 184 - Christmas
Fussy and Fancy #177 - I Love Christmas
3 Girl JAM Challenge #8 - Christmas Inspiration
Crazy 4 Challenges C4C166- Favorite Holiday Stamps (Teeny Tiny Wishes is my fave!)
Allsorts #184 - White, Gold plus One
Red Carpet Studio RCS#14 - "Frosty the Snowman" (or snowflake)
Creative Inspirations - Inspired by CAS
Pile It On #49 - Pile On the Embellishments
Incy Wincy Designs - Christmas with Snowflakes
Love to Create #45 - Anything Goes
Frosted Designs - 5th Day of Christmas